


A place to be

by hesychasm (Jintian)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-12
Updated: 2005-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:34:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jintian/pseuds/hesychasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-war. Harry takes care of the world, and Neville takes care of Harry.  Written before Book 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A place to be

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to marksykins and scribbulus_ink for letting me borrow challenge #96 from the Woobies of Destiny Fuh-Q-Fest. Yes, that was a long time ago. My version is slightly modified, but the concept's the same. What's the concept, you ask? Basically: death and loss and resulting angst. Read on for details.

  
In the immediate aftermath, Neville Longbottom became a collector of bodies.

He woke up lying facedown on a hillside, surrounded by the dead, inexplicably alive where they were not. Burnt grass scratched at his palms as he pushed himself partway up, then scratched at his face as his left arm collapsed under him and he fell flat again.

It was broken. He knew that sharp bone pain from years ago, kicked in the face by a Death Eater at the Department of Mysteries, and from a wealth of other injuries since then. Trying to avoid putting weight on it, Neville rolled and flopped over onto his back, gasping with the effort. Above, the sky was faded, scorched, sullen. Black tree branches twisted toward the horizon.

After some time he managed to force himself to his feet, gritting his teeth through the pain, cataloguing each hurt as he discovered it. Broken arm, cracked ribs, sprained ankle, blood dripping from a cut somewhere on his forehead, right eye gummed shut.

But he had his wand and he could walk. He scanned the bodies strewn over the hillside and began to lurch forward.

They seemed to have all died of magic. Their bodies were clear of wounds, from what he could tell. He thought they must have all died within moments of each other -- he remembered taking the portkeys along with the others into the midst of Voldemort's ritual, mass chaos as the Death Eaters broke and fled, unable to Disapparate. Spells shouted out loud, bolts of magic flying fast and frenzied through the air.

Neville shielded his eyes from the sun and looked to the top of the hill. His last memory was of Harry and Hermione and Ron running up the slope, Voldemort standing tall and still above them like a black wraith. Harry pulled ahead with his wand already out --

\-- and then Neville had awakened, and found everyone dead.

The Death Eaters he unmasked and left where they lay. Some Neville recognized from old battles: the Department of Mysteries, the raid on the Hogwarts Express, the attack at St. Mungo's. MacNair, Dolohov, Arden, Newberg. Some he had seen everyday in the Great Hall for almost seven years: Parkinson, Zabini, Nott. These he stood over grimly. His memory of them was sharpened by a child's fear and shame: he could still see them clearly at age eleven, menacing and arrogant. Vipers. Their eyes now were wide and blank, as if they had been posited a Transfiguration question they didn't know how to answer.

Neville hoped, savagely, that they had suffered.

He had seen loved ones die before -- his Gran a year ago and, blessedly, his parents just before, during the attack at St. Mungo's -- but he wept when he began to encounter members of Dumbledore's Army and the Order further up the hill. Susan Bones, Lavender Brown, Ernie Macmillan.

 _Luna_. _Ginny_.

When he found these two, lying next to each other with hands clasped, their beautiful hair tangled with dirt, his legs crumpled beneath him and he lost all track of time. They stared at the sky, unseeing, unmoving as he sobbed and struck the ground with his fists.

The sun was much lower in the sky when he at last climbed dully to his feet and pulled out his wand. One by one, he levitated their bodies -- he could hear Professor Flitwick squeaking during their first Charms class, " _Wingardium leviosa!_ "

They floated behind him, all of his childhood friends, trailing up the hillside in a growing chain.

So many. So many of them.

Just beneath the crest of the hill, he caught sight of another shock of red hair. Neville limped toward it.

Ron Weasley had not died of magic, but he had died _for_ magic. His wrists had been opened for his blood. Neville couldn't read the runes cut into his pale, skinny chest, but he could read the sight of Hermione Granger lying ten feet away, her hand still clutched around the knife.

After a moment, Neville drew off his robe and covered Ron with it. The cloth billowed in the wind as he levitated the body to join the long line behind him. He wiped the gummy tears and snot and sweat from his face with his sleeve and stumbled over to Hermione, each breath knifed by fractured ribs, meaning to carry her himself.

A scuffling noise drew his attention. He looked toward it and promptly caught his foot on a rock and tripped. The fall jarred his bad arm and ribs. Neville shrieked in pain, folding up in the dirt like a fetus.

Someone grabbed his shoulder. DA training kicked in and Neville whipped out his wand, crying, " _Stupef--_ "

But the word died in his mouth. Harry was kneeling beside him -- it was Harry's hand on Neville's shoulder, Harry was _alive_ and right there beside him, his face dirty and his hair as mussed as ever, glasses broken and knocked askew.

"Oh, God --" Neville gasped, "thank God --"

"It's gone," Harry said.

"Wh-what?"

"This." Harry's hand drifted from Neville's shoulder to point at his forehead. Smooth, scarless.

Neville gaped. "How?"

"He's gone." Harry settled back onto his haunches, rocking a bit. "He's gone. He's gone."

Slowly, Neville pulled himself up to kneel as well, the rocky hilltop hard beneath his knees. "Voldemort?"

"He's gone," Harry said, "he's gone. He's gone."

Neville looked around, saw the scorched clearing behind Harry where he had seen Voldemort standing like death itself, saw the green-tinged sky and the bodies on the hillside and Hermione with the knife in her hand, and the other bodies floating in their chain like a gruesome, undulating snake.

"He's gone," Harry repeated, his voice a whisper.

Neville shut his eyes. "They're all gone."

*

The Ministry of Magic's infrastructure immediately following Voldemort's defeat resembled a building that had encountered a Muggle wrecking ball, but after two days it was able to report that the so-called blast radius had stretched for three kilometers and no more. Most of the wizarding world had only learned of the battle when the _Daily Prophet_ arrived the next morning. They would all go on to lead normal, mundane lives in which they frightened their grandchildren with tales of He-Who-Was-Once-You-Know-Who. Neville supposed that was as it should be -- they had fought Voldemort in order to save the rest of the world, hadn't they?

Entire departments at the Ministry had been virtually decimated by the war; others were nearly so. Ad hoc committees and temporary appointments sprang up like weeds amid the dust of broken bureaucracy, but none of them could have located their arses with both hands. The surviving Order and DA members -- those who hadn't been at the last battle -- conferred and decided there was enough chaos in official circles that Harry could safely be sequestered at Hogwarts.

Neville spent the first few days or so lying on a cot in the hospital wing, trying to get a peek at what they were doing to Harry across the room. He could see all of their heads bent together very seriously, their bodies hiding Harry as they stood around his bed. Hardly any of them were part of the Old Guard, as Neville thought of it -- those who had been at the Department of Mysteries or spent time at Sirius Black's old house, those who had been part of it before the rest of the wizarding world finally believed. Most of these had only joined during his sixth and seventh years, and at Harry's request they hadn't been included in the trusted cadre that had gone to fight the last battle.

They seemed never to leave Harry's bedside -- it was perpetually occupied by some or all of them. Sometimes their murmurs reached Neville across the room, but he never once heard Harry speak.

Madam Pomfrey had given Neville strict orders to lie still and let his bones knit back together, but by the third day he was well tired of lounging about and decided to stage an act of defiance. He supposed the others would be finished getting whatever it was they needed from Harry eventually, and that night, he turned out to be right.

"We've got some hard inquiries to face at the Ministry tomorrow, Nev," said Eloise Midgen, patting him lightly on the knee. She had a rather self-important air about her, even though she had been in Neville's same year and he knew all about her re-attached nose. "So we're all off to have a prep session. That means you'll be alone tonight."

"Right," Neville said, glancing at Harry. He wanted to ask her to remove her hand from his knee.

"Do as Madam Pomfrey says, Nev -- 'spose you'll want to get up and walk about some, but take it easy when you do, and ah, try not to bother Harry." She said the latter in a rush, smiling wide as if she were his nursery school teacher.

 _Try not to bother Harry_. As if Neville hadn't stumbled onto the Quidditch pitch, still reeling from the force of the portkey and unbalanced from the weight of Hermione in his arms -- one broken -- looking round to see Harry also knocked off of his feet, lying in the lush green field and looking up at Neville with a bewildered expression, as if to say, _Why did you bring me here, Neville? This isn't where I wanted to be_.

Harry had shown no interest in what had happened to all the bodies. He hadn't even noticed them, hadn't looked once at Hermione as the Hogwarts staff -- what remained of them -- came flying out of the castle toward them, as Neville sputtered, sobbed, "We have to go back -- everyone's -- we have to --"

The New Guard eventually wrapped up whatever business it was they had with Harry, paid their farewells to Neville, and departed. Madam Pomfrey bustled in to leave Neville a dinner tray, but as soon as she left he pushed it to the end of the bed and got out.

Across the ward, Harry was a silent, dark lump beneath his bedcovers. A ball of light hovered over the bedside table, casting dim shadows over his face. Neville waved his wand at it as he drew near, and it brightened.

Harry was awake.

Well, his eyes were open, at least. But he didn't look up when Neville settled awkwardly on the edge of his bed, didn't change his blank expression, didn't move.

"How are you, Harry?" Neville asked. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing at attention, and it felt as though little ants were crawling over his skin.

Harry didn't answer.

"Madam Pomfrey said you didn't suffer any physical injuries. Luckier than me that way, I 'spose." _Lucky. Bugger, Neville, did you really just say that?_ "I mean," he hastened to add, "you could probably leave here at any time."

Harry blinked.

"Harry?"

Now the little ants had turned into shivers. Neville drew his feet up to rest his heels on the bottom railing of the cot, and curled himself down over his knees. He tried to think what date it was. Was it even summertime already?

"I wonder what'll happen to us," Neville said. "We never even got a chance to take our N.E.W.T.s."

He looked up and thought he saw something shift in Harry's eyes -- but maybe it was just the play of shadows. Still, feeling somewhat encouraged, he straightened and leaned forward.

"Harry? I...I tried to take care of them. The others, I mean. I know it was...weird...but I just -- I couldn't leave them there. Not there." He trailed off, clutching his arms tightly round himself to stop the shivering. "There were just so many of them."

Harry moved, then, sitting up and lifting his hand to rest it on Neville's shoulder, just as he had done on the hilltop. The smooth spot on his forehead, where the scar had been, seemed to gleam a little in the light. "I did it," he said.

"What?"

"Me. It was my fault."

"It was V- _Voldemort_ ," Neville protested, but Harry cut him off.

"No." He laid back down again, the blank expression already settling over his face.

"Whatever you did, and you didn't do _that_ , but whatever you did, you only did it because you had to."

Harry turned over onto his side. "Don't worry, I won't be doing it again."

"Of _course_ not, it wasn't --"

"Go away, Neville," Harry said.

"Harry --"

" _Go away_."

The protests died in his throat. He sat there and stared at Harry, but in the end there was nothing for it but to slink off the bed and back to his side of the ward.

He didn't notice that the shivers had stopped until just before he was about to fall asleep. He wasn't to understand why they had stopped until sometime later.

*

The memorial service for the dead was held two days later. Professor Sprout, as acting Headmistress, allowed the ceremony to occur on the school grounds, with the proceedings broadcast over the Wizarding Wireless Network. All of the wizarding news agencies had sent a journalist -- or three -- in the hopes of snapping pictures of The Boy Who Lived and the other survivor of the last battle, which meant of course that Harry and Neville had barricaded themselves inside the hospital wing behind the strongest ward the New Guard could muster.

They could hear bits and pieces of Professor Sprout's _Sonorus_ -enhanced voice through the windows, which had been cracked open for fresh air, but Neville switched on the wireless to hear better. Harry lay still and quiet on his cot, as if he couldn't care less what was happening.

Professor Sprout opened the ceremony with remarks about the bravery and heroism of all who had lost their lives. She did not mention either Neville or Harry specifically, but launched straightaway into reciting the list of names: "Hannah Abbott. Katie Bell. Susan Bones. Terry Boot. Lavender Brown."

It was eerie, the way her voice acquired an odd singsong rhythm as she went along, the way the names punched through the otherwise silent ceremony and then dropped, forgotten by the time the next name was read. Neville stared at his white bed sheet, unfocusing his eyes so that the threads filled his vision.

Oddly, it was the Creevey brothers who made Harry leap to his feet and knock the wireless to the floor. The box split against the stones, squawked and fell silent, cutting off the last bit of Dennis Creevey's name.

Through the windows they could still hear Professor Sprout's faint recitation: " _Elphias Doge_. _Arabella Figg_."

"Stop, stop, _stop!_ " Harry shouted. He ran to the windows, slamming them shut so forcefully that the glass shuddered in their frames. "Stop it, stop her, why is she _doing_ this?"

The last window crashed into place, and the glass promptly splintered and broke.

" _Justin Finch-Fletchley_. _Seamus Finnigan_."

Neville hurried toward him as Harry sank down against the wall beneath the window, crouching in bits of broken glass. Harry was shaking, and as Neville crouched before him and held his shoulders, that same feeling of hair standing on end and little crawling ants shivered up his skin.

"Harry, Harry, it's okay," Neville said, "it's all right, just be quiet, it's all right."

" _Mundungus Fletcher_. _Anthony Goldstein_."

"No," Harry babbled, "why doesn't she stop? Why's she doing this, Neville? Why?"

" _Hermione Granger_."

"Oh, God," Harry moaned. "Why did she do it? Why did she...why did she..."

"Hermione?"

"I told her to stop! I told them to stop, I said _if you do this, I'll never forgive you_ , and Ron said _if we don't, it's all over, if we don't do it we've lost_ \-- and he took the knife from her and he --"

Horrified, Neville squeezed his shoulders. "Harry, it was their choice --"

"-- they said it would give me power, they said just hold Voldemort off and we'll do the rest, and I knew he was dying but I couldn't look at them, because Voldemort was -- and I heard Hermione chanting and I felt it, I _felt_ it, Neville, so much power --"

"They did it to help you --"

"No!" Harry fought free of Neville's arms, trying to push himself up. Blood spattered from his hands where the glass had cut him. "It was too much, don't you _see_ \-- they gave me too much and everyone -- everyone --" Harry shook his head, running his bloody hands through his hair. "Because of _me_ , because I had to be the Boy Who fucking Lived --"

"But they didn't know what would happen!"

"Well, she should have! Why didn't she know, Neville? Know-It-All Granger! Why didn't she know this? Oh, fuck, Hermione, if you can hear me right now -- how could you be so stupid, _God_ , Hermione, I hate you so much --"

Neville drew back and punched Harry in the face.

Shocked, Harry stopped and looked at Neville, his nose trickling a bit of blood. His glasses had been knocked to the floor, and without them he looked so much younger, his eyes brilliant and unhidden.

Neville stared. He had no idea what to say, whether he wanted to apologize or hit Harry again or something worse -- so he simply stood there, trying not to choke on his own self-directed horror.

" _Angelina Johnson_. _Hestia Jones_."

"I'm --" Neville gulped, "-- sorry, Harry --"

Harry pushed him, so that Neville fell back and landed awkwardly on his bum, then scrambled to his feet and threw himself down on his bed, burrowing back beneath the covers.

*

A ghost greeted Neville when he entered the Headmistress's office.

Not a ghost, in truth, but a painting. Professor Sprout, being only the acting Headmistress, hadn't changed much besides the addition of a few plants, and Professor McGonagall, who had briefly been the acting Headmistress before her, had hardly touched the place either. The one major difference was the portrait of Professor Dumbledore which had been added to the collection of former headmasters. The portrait caught Neville's eye immediately, and Dumbledore gave him a kindly wink.

"Professor!"

"Well, hello, Mr. Longbottom. You look well."

"Er, you as well, sir." Neville moved closer. Yes, it was Dumbledore all right -- down to the twinkle in his eye. "How have you been, uh, lately? Keeping busy, hopefully."

"I have indeed. It's quite an exciting time, as I'm sure you know. And may I congratulate you on a job well done?"

"Me?" Neville blushed, feeling like a first year all over again, put on the spot in class. "What did I do?"

"You were yourself." Dumbledore smiled. "That is all anyone could have asked you to be, and you performed superbly."

Neville hesitated. A question had been weighing on his mind, ever since he had awakened on the hillside. "Professor, why me? Why didn't I -- like everyone else..."

"Why did you survive, you mean?"

"Er, yes." That word sounded so strange to him -- _survive_ , as if he had done something to make it happen, when really all he had done was wake up.

Dumbledore was still smiling. "I would imagine it has something to do with the prophecy."

"Prophecy? About me?"

"In a sense. I would suggest you ask Harry about the matter. He ought to know more about it than me, by now."

Totally confused now, Neville just nodded.

"Speaking of Harry, you are wonderful to be so patient with him, Mr. Longbottom."

"But I -- Professor, I _hit_ him!"

"As I said --" Dumbledore's eye twinkled, "-- you have been wonderfully patient. Don't abandon him just yet -- he simply needs time. There is much he will need to adjust to."

"Well, but Professor, it doesn't seem as though I'm really helping, does it? I mean, he never wants to talk to me. He just lies about in bed all day until I do something to make him angry."

"It isn't you making him angry," Dumbledore said, and now his voice was serious. "Trust your old Headmaster, Mr. Longbottom. You are helping him more than you know."

*

"It is rather irregular, my dear," said Professor Sprout, "but you are more than welcome to stay in one of the old faculty chambers for as long as need be. I suspect Hogwarts won't be properly in session at the start of term, anyway -- it simply can't be done, what with our lack of staff and...well, students."

"Thank you, Professor." Neville traced his hand over the petals of the laughing daffodil. It giggled politely at him, and the other pots along the shelf echoed it in an equally polite chorus.

"Might I ask who is minding your family home?" Professor Sprout asked gently.

Neville turned away from the daffodils. "No one, really. It was left to me, and we don't have any house elves or anything. I...I've only been back once since my Gran died."

Professor Sprout nodded as if she understood, and didn't ask any other questions. If she had, Neville supposed he would have told her more about that one visit, about the echoing silence of the house now that Gran's sharp voice was quiet, the gloom and dullness which had clung about the place since his childhood, and which was completely unbearable now without her to combat it. His granddad and great-uncle Algie and great-aunt Enid had all passed some time ago, and for the few years before her death, his Gran had held down the place all on her own. She _was_ that house -- she was the brick and mortar and wood of it, and without her it was only a shell.

Sprout arranged to have him moved to Professor Vector's old quarters. He felt slightly guilty for leaving Harry in the hospital wing after the conversation with Dumbledore, but he reasoned that he would return to visit regularly, and it wasn't as though he was leaving Hogwarts. The air had been tense in the ward since the memorial service: Harry had retreated further into wherever it was that he went these days, and Neville had no idea how to breach that silence.

To keep his days occupied, he volunteered to help in the greenhouses, and Professor Sprout gladly accepted. It wasn't the most necessary work, by any means -- as the days went on she kept diverting him to things like repairs in the Great Hall and the dormitories -- but it was work that he loved, and it was outdoors, more or less, with the sun shining in through the glass and his hands working in the soil, the scents of the various plants clearing his head.

Sometimes it wasn't enough. He'd had such a horrible sense of recollection for all of his childhood that it was strange now for certain memories to be so vivid. But occasionally they did come over him: a sack of dirt in his arms was suddenly Hermione, a glinting trowel reminded him of the knife and of Ron, a lily turned its head and he thought of Ginny, dancing at the Yule Ball.

And there were dreams, of course. Dreams that woke him late at night, shivering and gasping for breath. Dreams that left his pillow damp in the morning, though he could never remember weeping. After a while it got so unbearable that he went to Madam Pomfrey to ask for a potion, but the memories behind those dreams were still clear. His Gran, presiding regally over the dinner table: "You ought to be _proud_ , Neville. Aren't you _proud_?" Professor Dumbledore straightening up from his parents' beds with a sigh: "I'm sorry, Neville. But I can tell you there was no pain." All the members of the DA and the Order of the Phoenix, clutching their portkeys and blinking out one by one.

He missed them. Walking the damaged corridors of the castle, Neville felt an empty, aching yearning for those years when the thing he feared most was Professor Snape, when the Great Hall was filled with noisy students and every day ended with a bit of homework before the common room hearth. He would have gladly welcomed Malfoy and his goons back if it meant that all the rest of it could be as it was.

But outside of these low moments -- and really, they did pass -- he found he was content to spend his time in the greenhouses, helping to put the castle back together, taking tea with Professor Sprout in the Headmistress's office. It was a way to keep busy, and it was a way not to be in the world, hiding for a bit from things like the Ministry or whatever the _Prophet_ deemed newsworthy these days. He was content to let all of that happen far away, not even bothering to open the daily owls he received from strangers, or to connect his hearth to the Floo network.

As far as Neville was concerned, the rest of the wizarding world could just forget about him, and he would do the same.

*

It took him about a week to work up the nerve to visit Harry in the hospital wing -- what he had resolved would be a real visit in which he would sit down and attempt to make Harry talk, not just a hurried "Stopped by to see how you were, must run to the greenhouses now!" as he had been doing previously.

What helped him was the thought that Harry was one of the things he missed most. Even during the most intense parts of the war, they had never been apart for very long. Neville wasn't like Ron or Hermione, of course, but he and Harry had shared a dormitory for nearly seven years, had lived with each other in various headquarters and safe houses for almost a year after that, had taken countless meals together, trained together, studied together. It oughtn't to matter what Harry was like now -- he was still _Harry_.

But when Neville arrived in the hospital wing, he saw that Harry already had visitors. The New Guard was crowded around his bed, as usual, and there was someone else speaking who had all of their attention.

"Now, Mr. Potter, try this one. Holly, thirteen inches, with a unicorn hair for the core."

It was Mr. Ollivander, a wizard who made Neville uneasy for almost a full day after he had first visited the wand shop. His moon-like eyes focused on the doorway as soon as Neville stepped through it.

"Ah, Mr. Longbottom. Beech, if I recall correctly. Ten inches. Dragon heartstring."

"Er, right," Neville said, trying to return Mr. Ollivander's strange smile. "Nice to see you again. What's all this?"

"Harry's wand was lost in the last battle," Eloise said importantly. "Mr. Ollivander's come to give him a replacement."

"I don't often make house calls," Mr. Ollivander said. "But I thought in this case, I could make an exception." He turned that odd gaze back to Harry, and Neville breathed a sigh of relief.

Harry was sitting on the edge of his bed, surrounded by what looked like dozens of boxes of wands. He was very pale, and he wouldn't meet Neville's eyes -- or anyone's really. He seemed to only be halfway present as he opened a box at Mr. Ollivander's prompting and took out a wand.

"Wave it about, please," Mr. Ollivander instructed.

Harry did so, but nothing happened.

"Hmmm. Try the next wand. Ash, fourteen inches."

Again, nothing.

Eloise leaned in and whispered to Neville, "That's the eighth wand he's tried. Apparently they're all duds."

"They are not, Miss Midgen," Ollivander said sharply. "The problem is not with them, but with the wandholder."

"What do you mean?" demanded a boy Neville didn't recognize at first. Ravenclaw?

Ignoring him, Ollivander pointed to another wand. Harry picked it up, swished it through the air -- and nothing. Pursing his lips, Ollivander edged closer. "May I?" he asked, stretching out a thin, long-fingered hand.

Harry shrugged.

Gently, Ollivander tapped all around Harry's grip, lingering on the places where he was actually touching the wand. The sight of Ollivander's strange fingers on Harry's made Neville feel a bit queasy.

"Hmmm. Interesting. Very interesting. Yes, I -- but wait a moment, let's see..." Whip-fast, he plucked the wand from Harry's hand and replaced it with another, then touched the tip of his own wand to Harry's. The tip of Ollivander's wand glowed, but Harry's stayed dark. Ollivander did this with several more wands, tossing the used ones without even bothering to re-box them.

But nothing happened with any of them, and suddenly a frightening thought began to expand in Neville's mind. After all, his own family had always feared he might be --

"It's just as I thought," Ollivander said. He flicked his wand, and all of the others repacked themselves. "Mr. Potter is simply incapable of using these wands."

"Incapable?" the Ravenclaw spluttered. "Why, for Merlin's sake?"

"Because it's gone," Neville said, his voice hoarse.

"Exactly, Mr. Longbottom," Ollivander replied.

The Ravenclaw made an impatient noise. "What's gone?"

Harry's voice, in answer, was quiet but clear: "The magic. The magic is gone."

*

It was strange at first, but the New Guard seemed almost _angry_ about it, demanding that Harry simply try again, then when it became obvious that Harry had stopped even acknowledging them, demanding of Ollivander that he explain what had happened.

"It's unheard of!" declared Lisa Turpin. Her fellow Ravenclaw nodded in staunch agreement.

"On the contrary, my dear," Ollivander said. "Instances of magical burnout were quite common centuries ago. This was before modern wandmaking came into its own, of course -- people simply didn't know how to safely focus their power before innovators like Jurgin Delphus and Yuri Yoltansky began circulating their models. Delphus was the one who first discovered how to properly mine the complexities of the unicorn tail hair -- a truly great mind, he was --"

"Never mind all that -- why didn't we ever learn about it in History of Magic?"

"Well, it's quite the dirty little secret. Wands aren't strictly necessary to do magic, you see. In fact they _limit_ a wizard's power output. But wandless magic has always been considered extremely dangerous -- perhaps now that we're in a more enlightened age, we might learn more about it under controlled circumstances, but it simply wouldn't do to have the whole population burning itself out right and left."

"So Harry could try to do wandless magic?" Lisa asked.

"Of course not," Ollivander snapped. "When it's gone, it's gone."

There was more arguing, but the New Guard seemed to be leaving Harry out of it. There was a sense of fear and unease beneath their shocked indignation: from where Neville sat on the cot beside Harry, he thought he could _feel_ the rest of them pulling away. They wouldn't even look at him now -- it was as if they thought Harry's condition might be catching, and would infect them if they had any interaction.

There were tangible reasons for their discomfort, though -- sitting this close to Harry, the shivers Neville had felt before were back in full force. He understood what they meant, now. It was because there was something wrong with Harry. It was his own body recognizing what Harry had lost.

"But he can still use portkeys --" the Ravenclaw boy was saying, "he's sitting right here in the castle, after all, he's not a bloody _Muggle_ \--"

"Something more akin to a Squib, I'd say," Ollivander said. "Still somewhat magical, but without the actual magic."

Neville winced. He looked over at Harry, but Harry didn't even seem to be listening. His eyes were focused on the window, which was still broken. Neville supposed no one else had noticed it yet.

"Do you want to leave?" Neville murmured. He hesitated, then reached out and put his hand on Harry's knee.

But that made Harry seem like -- like a _child_ or something, and himself like Eloise Midgen and her nursery school teacher smile. Neville quickly removed his hand.

"Harry, let's leave," Neville said. He stood, and after a moment, Harry stood too.

Eloise looked over at them. "Where are you going?"

"Outside," Neville said.

"I hardly think --"

"Thank you for your help, Mr. Ollivander," Neville said.

Ollivander gave him a little bow. "Until next time, Mr. Longbottom. And you, Mr. Potter."

Neville thought he ought to shake the wizard's hand, but he didn't think he could stomach touching those fingers. So he simply nodded, and then he and Harry were leaving the New Guard protesting behind them, and they were outside in the corridor and free.

"Let's go to the greenhouses," Neville suggested.

Harry kept pace with him as they crossed the grounds, but he didn't speak. The sun shone bravely over a bank of clouds, warming the shivers out of Neville's skin as they walked. They reached Greenhouse 1 and Neville took out his wand to unlock the door, glancing apologetically at Harry. But Harry was looking up at the sky, not even paying attention to him.

"Here," Neville said, and handed Harry a trowel. "I've got to repot all of these Flutterby bushes. Just, erm, try not let 'em shake too much when you remove 'em, otherwise they're hard to get into the new pot."

They knelt side by side in the soft soil of the greenhouse, with the sun refracting through the glass roof and onto their backs. The bushes quivered beneath their hands, smelling of earth and greenness. Neville showed Harry how to do the first one, made sure he'd got it on his own, then bent to the task himself.

He loved this work. He loved the way his mind went calm and still and quiet, filled with the hushed sounds of dirt being moved about and the Flutterby leaves brushing together. Perspiration trickled down Neville's face; he breathed deeply of the fertile air and stretched, joints popping pleasantly as he arched his back.

"I want to leave," Harry said.

Neville stopped and looked at him. "You want to go back to the castle?"

"No. I want to _leave_ the castle."

A panicked feeling went through Neville. Harry wanted to leave? To leave Neville here? "Where will you go?"

"I don't know. I just...I can't be here. I can't stay here." Harry met his eyes. "Can you?"

Neville looked around them, at the quivering Flutterbys and the lushness of the greenhouse, the late afternoon sun turning the light yellowish and warm. Through the glass wall he could see the castle. "I hardly know where else to be."

"I can't stay here," Harry repeated. "They'll drive me mad."

"I'm sure Professor Sprout could make them leave you alone."

"No. I don't just mean them. I mean this _place_. I can't stay."

"But what would you do if you weren't here?"

"Dunno." Harry shrugged. "I lived as a Muggle for eleven years. 'Spose I could pick it back up."

"You'd leave the wizarding world?"

"It's not such a strange idea. Other Squibs have done the same."

"You're not a Squib," Neville said. "You're _Harry Potter_."

But that was the wrong thing to say. Harry turned away from him, sticking his trowel into a pile of dirt. "Even if I could do magic now, I wouldn't." He shook his head. "Not after all of that. I _couldn't_."

Neville thought fast. "Is it only Hogwarts? I mean, why can't you just -- go to London or something?"

"And deal with all of those people? Everyone trying to get at me all the time?" Harry shuddered. "I wish I could just disappear."

"Well, somewhere else, then. I mean, if it's people you want to avoid -- you could...you could come with me."

"Where?"

"My Gran's house -- my house." He was surprised at the words coming out of his mouth, but as the thoughts formed in his mind, he couldn't stop himself from voicing them. "It's in Lancashire. I mean, it's just an old house, it's not like -- I dunno, Malfoy Manor or anything -- and it's full of junk she could never throw away. Not very comfortable. But there aren't a lot of people out there, just a few Muggles in a little village nearby. And the only wizards out there are friends of my Gran's, and I expect they've all popped their clogs by now. No one to bother you."

A ghost of a smile crossed Harry's face. "I thought you liked it here."

"I do, but..." Neville stopped. He did like it here. Why was he offering to leave?

He looked at Harry, trying to picture him in that house, surrounded by his Gran's taxidermy collection, sneezing at all of the dust, looking at all of the pictures of Neville and his parents. He had no desire at all to go back to that house -- quite the opposite, in fact.

But otherwise, what would happen? Harry would leave without him, he'd disappear, and Neville would be left at Hogwarts with Professor Sprout and the likes of Eloise Midgen and Lisa Turpin. He'd be left with them and a great empty castle to wander around in on sleepless nights, yearning for a past he could never recover.

A small part of Neville sensibly pointed out that Harry was just as much a reminder of the past as Hogwarts, but above and beyond that was the panic. He didn't want to leave, but he wanted even less to be left behind.

_"Neville," Hermione said, "I'm really, really sorry about this." She raised her wand. "Petrificus Totalus!"_

"Let's go," Neville said to Harry. "Let's go to Lancashire."

"Really?" For the first time, Harry looked alert and attentive. He looked like he was finally waking up.

"Yes," Neville said firmly, "you and me." And he stuck his trowel next to Harry's, in the soil.

*

Truth to tell, he had expected more of a fight. Not from Professor Sprout, of course, because she would understand, but certainly from the New Guard. Their lives seemed to revolve around Harry, which Neville thought was quite stupid since all the people who had _really_ had cause to structure their lives around Harry were now dead.

Except, of course, for himself.

But there was hardly a fight at all (tears from Eloise Midgen didn't count). Neville suspected they were still too shocked and discomfited by what had happened to Harry to have any idea how to act normally around him. Not that they had ever really acted normally around Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, but especially for the rigid-minded Ravenclaws he was now almost... _offensive_ : he was unclassifiable, a walking phenomenon, a living contradiction.

And at any rate, Harry himself silenced any real protests: he was quiet and implacable in announcing their decision to leave, and no one dared argue with that.

They had learned during the war how to make themselves Unplottable and Undetectable by magical means, but not how to do the same for a house. Since it was only a matter of time before news of Harry's state would reach the wizarding public, and since neither he nor Neville wished to entertain any visitors from said public in Lancashire, they set about learning it as best they could. Or rather, Neville set about learning it -- Harry helped dutifully with research, but it was Neville who cast the spells, bollocksing them up at first and wishing silently that Hermione were there to do it for him, then finally watching the little black letters on the map shimmer and disappear, one by one: " _L - O - N - G - B - O - T - T - O - M_."

Professor Sprout gave them a laughing daffodil to keep inside the house, and a shrinkable box containing seedlings from every plant in the greenhouses. "You needn't plant them all at once, dear," she told Neville. "They'll keep for a lifetime."

He thanked her and embraced her, and when he let go, there were tears in her eyes.

"It's really over, isn't it?" She sniffed, brushing the wetness from her cheeks and leaving a smear of dirt. "Thank you, boys. Thank you. Best of luck to you both."

Neville had set the portkey to go at a certain time. He had every reason to believe it would work on Harry just as well as the one that had taken them away from the battlefield. But just in case, he reached down and clasped Harry's hand in his own.

The familiar jerk behind the navel, the whooshing darkness, Harry clutching his fingers tightly -- and when he opened his eyes, they were home.

*

Neville gave Harry the run of the house indoors, requesting only that he chuck everything in the attic rather than binning it. "Even these?" Harry asked, gesturing toward the row of stuffed fowl balanced precariously on the mantelpiece.

"Especially those," Neville said.

While Harry kept busy indoors, Neville worked outside, trying to cultivate the plot of land surrounding the house into something more interesting. He knew the grounds like the back of his hand, all the little hills and hollows he had played in as a child, but he meant to draw something new out of them now. He worked without a plan or a design, planting whichever of Professor Sprout's saplings felt right, sometimes regretting a choice he had made about location or plant type. But these feelings were always fleeting, and he generally worked from morning until sundown, stopping only for lunch or rain.

At dusk he would come inside, and perhaps Harry would have prepared a bit of stew, or they would stroll down to the Muggle village to get a bite at the pub. It was strange to be around so many Muggles at once, but Harry seemed quite at ease with them, and eventually Neville got used to the strange-tasting beer and the telly-thing flashing pictures and noise in the corner.

The first time they went to the pub, Neville drew out his billfold at the end of the meal, but the sheaf of oddly colored notes which Gringott's had owled from his account stymied him.

"Erm, how many of these d'you 'spose I should put down?" he asked Harry.

Harry took the cheque away from him. "None. I'll get this."

"Aren't we dividing it?"

"No. And don't worry about any other meals, either."

"I can take care of my own _food_ \-- I just need to know how many of these to put down --"

"Neville. It's the least I can do." Harry used the same voice he had used on the New Guard to say they were leaving, and Neville shut up.

Mostly when it came to conversations, Neville took his cue from Harry: he didn't try to pursue them. Jabbering on about what they had done all day, or worse yet, talking about the past, seemed to be the last thing Harry wanted to do. This made for many a long silence, but Neville found over time that he became accustomed to sharing space with a person who never spoke. It wasn't as if they had been the closest of friends before, he reasoned, or as if he had ever been particularly talkative with anyone besides his Gran. Nothing new.

It could be awkward, though. The first two weeks or so, Neville was occasionally awakened at night by sounds drifting down the upstairs hall from Harry's room -- what had been Neville's Gran's room. Whimpers, the occasional shout. Nightmare sounds. Neville wondered if he ought to go down to wake Harry, but the thought of what had happened during the memorial service stopped him. And anyway, Harry would always subside after a while, and he never showed anything beyond a bit of bleary eyed-ness the next morning.

Still, after two weeks of it Neville came back into the house for lunch and pushed something across the table to Harry.

"What's this?" Harry picked up the bunch of stems tied together with string.

"Hellebore," Neville said. "Just flowered. Don't you remember Potions? It's an ingredient in the Draught of Peace."

"And?"

"Well, I'm crap at Potions, but see -- if you just burn a bit of it, like in an ashtray or something, on your night table before you go to sleep...well, it helps with dreams and things."

"You mean with nightmares," Harry said quietly.

"Well...yes."

"Thank you," Harry said, and pocketed the stems.

And that was the end of the conversation, and the end of Neville being awoken in the dead of night.

It was a comfortable enough arrangement. In some ways it was as though they were back in Gryffindor Tower again, two people sharing living quarters, sharing enough that they didn't have to fill every second with talk or excitement. During the day Neville worked in his gardens, and Harry worked inside the house. Sometimes Harry would call Neville to help him move a particularly large piece of furniture, and together they would wrestle the grandfather clock into the entryway, or the chaise into the family room, or roll up the downstairs carpet and unroll it again upstairs.

Neville never asked Harry why these things needed to be moved, and if Harry noticed that Neville never offered to use magic to move them, he didn't comment on that either.

The thought came to Neville one day that he hadn't used his wand in a week, not even to light his way. (When they had first moved in, Harry had arranged to have the house "wired," telling the Muggle workmen that they were restoring an ancient manse. Neville found the odd little prongs which turned the lights on and off to be quite clever.) The abstention from magic was out of consideration for Harry, yes -- although they had never once spoken of it and Harry had certainly never requested such consideration -- but Neville found that he didn't really miss using magic, either. He could cook, clean, and work well enough without it. And after all, Muggles did without magic just fine.

They received no visitors, and no owls other than a short note of well-wishing from Professor Sprout and their weekly withdrawals from Gringott's. Neville had a Sunday subscription to the _Daily Prophet_ , and of course they had a wireless, but invariably he found that the wireless remained off, and that he would bin the _Prophet_ after a brief glance at the headlines. It all seemed so distant, now.

And so went life. After a short while, Neville lost count of the number of days they had been in the house. They seemed to stretch behind him and ahead of him like a calm gray sea. He had his plants to cultivate, a few meals per day, a solid sleep at night. And if he occasionally felt lonely, well, it was certainly better than _not_ having Harry in the house, wasn't it?

In truth, he didn't know what else he would rather be doing.

*

"Bugger!" Harry said.

Neville strolled into the entryway, still munching on his toast. "What?"

Harry was standing on a footstool, reaching up toward the chandelier with a strange looking metal rod with a claw-like thing on the end. "Bloody lightbulb's gone out. And this thing --" he did something that made the claw open and snap shut, "-- is completely useless. Why did we never buy a ladder?"

"I could boost you."

"Don't think I could get high enough." Harry put down the rod and tilted his head back. "Maybe you could levitate me?"

"You mean --"

"I don't see any other way for it to work, do you? If you _Accio_ it, you'd break it, and also, there'd be no way to get the replacement screwed in there. It requires hands."

"Right." Neville swallowed the toast he was chewing. "Let me, er, just get my wand, then."

He'd quite forgotten where he'd left it. Turning up the bedcovers and opening all the drawers in his bedroom yielded nothing. It wasn't in any of the kitchen cupboards. It wasn't underneath the sofa cushions in the parlor. It was... He stood on the stair landing for a moment, scratching his head and looking bemusedly down at Harry in the entryway.

"Bugger," Neville said. He turned and went into the bathroom, and there his wand was, on the windowsill above the tub. He picked it up, blew the dust off, and went back down to Harry.

"Whenever you're ready," Harry said, as if Neville were the one to be levitated.

"Right," Neville said again. " _Leviosa!_ "

Gently, he wafted Harry up toward the chandelier. An unreadable look crossed Harry's face as he rose, but disappeared almost as soon as Neville saw it.

"Just...turn me a bit there," Harry directed. "It's this bulb that's out."

Neville turned him, then backed away a bit to keep a better eye on what he was doing. Harry's back was toward him now, his body thin and straight as it hung in the air, the long loops of his trainer laces dangling past the bottoms of his feet.

"Are you all right?" Neville called up. "Balanced, and everything?"

"Fine," came Harry's reply. Then, "Shit!" immediately followed by the tinkling sound of breaking glass. "Dropped the damn thing."

Neville hurried forward. "New one or old one?"

"Old one. Sorry."

"S'all right. I'll just clean it up after you're finished."

"I'm done now."

Carefully, Neville lowered Harry to the floor. When he landed, Harry was still turned away, his head bent and shoulders shaking a bit, and when Neville drew up level with him he saw that Harry was crying.

"Harry..." Neville said softly.

Harry swiped furiously at his eyes, sniffed, and bent down to pick up the pieces of glass with trembling hands.

At some point during the past few months, the shivers Neville felt near Harry had stopped. He'd supposed he'd simply become used to it. But perhaps he hadn't spent that much time close to Harry after all, because now, as he reached out to touch Harry's shoulder, his hand was shaking, too.

"Harry," Neville said. He didn't know what else to say.

After a moment, Harry leaned into Neville's touch, the glass spilling from his hands. Soft, wounded noises came from his throat as he leaned against Neville's bent knee, bringing his arms up so he could bury his face in the sleeves of his fuzzy green jumper.

The ache in him was tangible, the empty, raw space where something essential had been. Gently, Neville maneuvered so that he could encircle Harry in an awkward embrace. Skinny shoulder pushing into his chest, hot tears against his neck. Harry shook like a bird, smelling of dust and stale sweat. "It's okay," Neville said, the words meaningless. "You're all right."

"I'm not," Harry said. "I'm not. And you're not. None of it is."

Neville held him tighter, not knowing how to answer.

*

He was out gardening when the package arrived. Neville sat up, shading his eyes, and waited until the owl settled down next to him. It hooted softly as he untied the package. Neville dug around in the soil, found a worm, and fed it to the owl before it flew off.

"What have you got there?" Harry asked, when Neville came in.

"It's for you," Neville said. He held the long brown parcel out to Harry.

Recognition flashed in Harry's eyes. He shook his head and backed away. "No," he said. "I don't want it."

"Look." Neville unwrapped the parcel himself. "I just thought, if you can use portkeys and all the rest, you could probably still use this." He held the broomstick out to Harry. "I couldn't afford anything so fancy as a brand new Firebolt, but hopefully a used Cleansweep will do."

"Neville, I _can't_."

"Maybe not," Neville said. "But I got it for you anyway, just in case."

He laid the broomstick down on the kitchen table, giving it a wistful once-over -- he had always been horrible at those things -- and went back out to garden.

The broomstick was gone at supper time, and Harry didn't mention it again. But a week later Neville looked up to see Harry rising past the roof of the house, higher and higher, wafting back and forth like a dragonfly testing the wind.

He watched until Harry faded into the sky, feeling some of that strange empty ache again. It stayed with him all day, strengthening that night as they walked down to the Muggle pub and Neville asked, "How did it go?" and Harry answered, something indefinable in his voice, "Good. Like riding a bike."

Harry didn't take the broom out everyday, but he did take it out for longer and longer durations when he did. He asked Neville to put a Concealing Charm on it, so that the Muggles wouldn't see him. He would set out in the morning, waving to Neville where he knelt among his rows of plants, and often wouldn't return until the sun was just setting, his hair wild from the wind and his eyes bright.

"What do you see?" Neville asked him once. "When you go, I mean."

Harry shrugged. "Mostly just how far I can go."

One night he didn't return in time for supper, and as Neville walked to the pub, alone, he felt the emptiness expand. He knew what it meant. Even as he lay in bed that night, listening to Harry scuff up the stairs and down the hall to his room, he knew.

"It's a good broom," Harry remarked later, as they walked up to the house with bags of groceries. "Not as fast as the Firebolt, of course, but it gets there. Regular old workhorse."

"Good," Neville said. "I'm glad you like it."

Harry stopped and looked at him. "And you," he said. "You've been a good friend, Neville."

Neville felt his ears turn red. "Th-thanks."

"I mean it," Harry said softly. "If it weren't for you, I might've...I mean, even after we came here, it was hard. Some days it was really hard." He hefted the grocery bags in his hands, looking for all the world as if he were thirteen years old again, too-thin in a too-big jumper and baggy pants. "But even before that, you were always --" He stopped, looking embarrassed. "You were always better than the rest of us."

Mortified, Neville said, "Hardly!"

Harry turned and continued walking. "It should have been you," he said. "Things would have been so much better if it was you."

"What do you mean?" Neville hurried to catch up with him, and suddenly, something clicked into place inside his head. "You mean the prophecy?"

"You know about that, do you?"

"No, I -- Professor Dumbledore told me to ask you."

"Dunno why -- he always told me it had worked out just the way it was supposed to, and no use dwelling on it."

"Er, well, he seemed to think it's why I was the only one to survive what -- what happened."

Harry stopped and gave him a puzzled look. "What?"

"Oh! His painting, I mean. In the Headmistress's office."

"I suppose," Harry said. "It wouldn't be the first time I didn't understand something Dumbledore said about magic."

"So..." Neville hesitated. "What was the prophecy?"

"Basically what you'd think. That I would kill Voldemort, or he would kill me." Harry shook his head. "But Dumbledore said the way the prophecy was laid out, it could have been either you or me. It's just that, the way it worked out, Voldemort chose me. Killed my parents, tried to kill me. But until then it could have been either of us."

Neville stood there, stunned. "And that's why I survived?"

"I don't know. If Dumbledore said so."

Neville pushed past him, still carrying his groceries. The approach to the house got steeper as it got closer, and by the time he reached the front door he was breathing like a dragon. He unlocked it, swept straight through to the kitchen, and didn't look up from putting away the groceries when Harry came in a few minutes later.

"Neville," Harry said. "I meant what I said. It _would_ have been better if it had been you."

"That makes no sense at all," Neville snapped.

"What I mean is that none of this would have happened. I wouldn't have..." Harry stopped, his voice trailing off in a whisper.

Neville slammed the icebox door shut. "You can't keep thinking about what _would_ or wouldn't have happened! _This_ is what happened. This! He chose you, and you killed him, and you did what it took. _Everyone_ did what it took."

"But it didn't have to be that way --"

"How do you know? How do you know Ron and Hermione wouldn't have been my friends? How do you know they wouldn't have decided to do the exact same thing? And instead of me waking up after, and seeing everyone --" he choked, swallowed past the pricking of tears, "-- maybe it would have been you. And I'd be where you are now, and nothing would have changed."

Harry was shaking his head. "You're saying there weren't _choices_. You're saying it was all locked in from the beginning! That I couldn't have done anything to stop it."

"That's what a bloody prophecy _is_!"

"That all the people I knew, my friends, Ron and Hermione and the Weasleys and Remus, all of those stupid fucks who followed us because they thought we knew what we were doing, all of that, my entire life, their entire lives -- was just so they could up and _die_ \--"

" _Everyone_ dies," Neville shouted. "But at least they all died for a reason! At least they were doing something to _help_. And you, you're pissing on it every day you think it didn't have to be that way. Because it doesn't _matter_ if it had to be that way -- it _was_. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can stop acting as though all you want to do is join them!"

" _That's not what I_ \--" Harry slammed his hand down on the kitchen table, making a bowl of oranges jump, and bolted out of the house. Through the kitchen window Neville could see him running, trampling through one of his herb gardens and down the hillside, nearly tripping over his own feet and sliding in grass that was still wet from the last rainfall. Harry drew up short at the bottom of the incline, threw back his head and screamed toward the sky.

Neville stood where he was, listening. In the quiet, empty house, it sounded as though Harry were underwater, his wordless shouting muffled and unformed.

After a moment, Neville turned slowly toward the groceries and began to put them away again.

*

That night he was awakened again by Harry, but this time it was because he was sitting on the edge of Neville's bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight.

"Wha...?" Neville murmured, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"I never told you," Harry said quietly, "but the hellebore stopped working two months ago."

Neville blinked. "I don't hear you anymore."

"Maybe you're just used to me."

"I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine. It did help. And anyway, we already knew magic couldn't fix everything, didn't we?"

Neville sat up. "You want to tell me you're leaving."

Harry nodded in the darkness, so that Neville couldn't see. But he could feel it, the same way he could feel that Harry was crying: silently, not even hitching a breath.

"Why?"

"Because you're a better person than I am."

"That's shite, and you know it."

"Because I have to."

"That's shite, too." Neville reached out and curled his fingers around Harry's wrist. "Don't, Harry. I mean, leave here, if you want. But don't disappear."

"You'll see me again. I promise."

Harry leaned forward, one hand going to the back of Neville's neck. He kissed Neville's forehead, his lips cool and wet, then his cheek, then pressed his mouth to Neville's. His glasses mashed against Neville's face.

"Thank you," he whispered between kisses. "Thank you."

And then he was gone, and Neville was holding only empty air.

*

The sun the next morning was bright, shining in through the high windows in the entryway, blinding Neville as he trudged down the stairs. He went through every room of the house, looking finally at all the changes Harry had made. He had grown up here, spent eleven years and seven sets of holidays here, and he couldn't recognize a thing.

He ate an orange for breakfast, saving the seeds, then dressed to go out to the garden. On his way out the door, he picked up his wand and put it in his pocket.

  
 _When I was young, younger than before  
I never saw the truth hanging from the door  
And now I'm older see it face to face  
And now I'm older gotta get up clean the place._  


  
_And I was green, greener than the hill  
Where flowers grow and sun shines still  
Now I'm darker than the deepest sea  
Just hand me down, give me a place to be._  


  
_And I was strong, strong in the sun  
I thought I'd see when day is done  
Now I'm weaker than the palest blue  
Oh, so weak in this need for you._  


  
\-- Nick Drake, "Place to Be"

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and criticism welcome.


End file.
